Marksman
by Ebenbild
Summary: Five times Hawkeye missed his mark and one time he didn't, or how Phil met Clint. Deaf!Clint, before Avenger movies.
_**Disclaimer**_ _: Sadly all Marvel's and not mine. If I had done the movies, Clint would have been the star from the start._

 _ **Placing:**_ _Before the movies._

 _ **Warning:**_ _I have no idea about the comic's, and just know some tit-bits from gossip and wikipedia, so this is mainly based on the first Avenger's movie._

 _Just an idea I had, nothing more._

Five times Hawkeye missed his mark and one time he didn't or how Phil met Clint

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **MARKSMAN**_

sSs

I.

"Duck!"

And Phil automatically did, not even twitching when he was nearly being buried by one of the other agents.

In the end, neither Phil nor the other man were injured.

"You've been lucky, Coulson. If the marksman would have been any better, you would have been dead."

And Phil turned to look behind him, barely believing that the enemy behind him had been shot by his own man when the sniper had missed his mark. They were fighting in a close setting. The sniper had to be positioned somewhere on the roofs nearby – with a riffle an easy position to shoot the opposition without the chance of shooting the own men even if the shooter was barely competent.

And yet, the marksman had missed.

It was odd, unexplainable, but yet, Phil had to believe it. SHIELD didn't have a marksman, so the marksman definitely was an enemy.

Hours later Phil was sitting at his desk, unsure how to explain the happenings on the field today in his report. In the end, he did the only logical thing. He wrote: "Friendly fire." It was the only reason that made some sense to him.

But still…

"I can't believe the marksman missed," Phil said. "He can't have been in a distance that would explain him missing an easy target like me."

And yet, the marksman had.

What a horrible marksman.

sSsSsSsSs

II.

The next time, Phil was shot at, had been one and a half months later. That time, he was at a stake-out behind the enemy lines. He had been working with two other agents as their handler, gathering data for SHIELD and the army.

They were lying low after liberating the important data from the enemy and were now just waiting for the "all clear" to start their retreat back to their troops.

It was already after midnight and the forest they were in was a mass of shadows and movement. It was good to conceal them and yet dangerous since the enemy would be concealed like that as well. Even with their night vision gear there was high chance for an ambush. Still, they were safe where they were – or so they thought – just waiting for the order to return to the base.

Later, Phil would tell Nick Fury that he was sure that they all would have died that day if the first shot hadn't missed.

"You're clear to go," a voice was heard over the headset by Phil and his men and Phil answered instantly.

"Copy that. We're moving."

Just a second after they started to move, they threw themselves on the ground again. A bullet had embodied itself in the ground just an inch in front of Phil's right foot.

It had been Phil's instant "duck!" that had them return into cover.

It was their luck, because unlike the one missed bullet, the other ones wouldn't have missed their target. The ambush would have been perfect, Phil and his men dead. Like it was, they all escaped with minor injuries.

"What a horrible marksman," one of the other agents commented later on. "We should be grateful that the worst of them shot first."

And Phil had only be able to nod in agreement while writing down the report as precisely as he could.

Still, it was an odd occurrence. It was the second time a marksman had missed him from a distance normally even a civilian with a sniper's riffle would have a hard time to miss. But SHIELD had no marksman, so the marksman had to be the enemy's.

In the end, it was the second… odd… report Phil files. Nick Fury, instead, didn't see a problem. It's, after all, not too odd to be missed by a bullet – especially if the shooter was untrained.

Still, what a horrible marksman, indeed.

sSsSsSsSs

III.

After the third time it happens – just three months after the last time – people in SHIELD start to joke about Phil being "guarded by an exceptionally good guardian angel". When Phil heard that rumor, he simply scoffed at it.

"There aren't any guardian angels involved," he told Nick Fury. "It's solely luck – and one day I will run out of it."

That time, Phil found himself standing alone in a deserted square under the burning sun, with a gun pressed to his head by the opposition. His own gun had been lying ten feet away from him and there was no chance to reach it before the man in front of him would be able to press the trigger.

"You are goin' to regret comin' here," the man said and his rancid breath enveloped Phil's face.

The man's eyes were hard and merciless and Phil guessed that he was in for some torture and a very painful death. There was not even a chance for Phil to escape or to hope for rescue since the agent with him had been killed in an alley not too far away and the reinforcement was still too far away to get to him in time.

"We should really try to hire a marksman," Phil thought at that time. "Having someone close by and at the same time far away enough to not being spotted so easily would definitely be an improvement for our tactics." To Phil's utter regret it's not quite easy to find a decent marksman who is ready to work with them. Working with SHIELD is after all a lot more dangerous than working as an army sniper – and that counts something…

Still, a marksman from SHIELD would mean to get help from afar, and that might have made a whole lot of difference in Phil's particular case.

But Phil knew that there would be no help for him this time around – after all, who counts on a marksman missing his mark?

So, Phil prepared himself for capture, torture and death.

When the man in front of him raised his arm in a signal pose, Phil felt oddly grateful of it. A signal and the gleaming of a sniper's riffle in the desert sun meant an easy and fast death – something he hadn't dared to hope for before.

Still, he didn't truly want to face death just yet and so, when the man in front of him raised his off-hand, he closed his eyes to wait for the pain.

One second.

Two.

Three.

A minute.

Nothing.

When he was still alive two minutes later, Phil opened his eyes again to stare at the man in front of him.

What he saw, made him stare in confusion.

In front of him laid the man in the desert sun – dead.

And again, Phil struggled what to write into his report.

"Survived because a marksman missed in ideal surroundings and conditions", maybe? There had been no wind, no obscured sight, no anything. And yet, the sniper missed.

What a horrible marksman.

sSsSsSsSs

IV.

"You know, we could use your guardian angel right now," and Phil wanted to do nothing but to scoff at that exclamation, but in the end, Nick Fury was right. The director, five agents and Phil were – just about five and a half month after the last incident – in the hands of the enemy and they _could_ indeed use Phil's luck with bullets that day. They had been trapped in one of their safe-houses and were now disarmed and at their enemy's non-existent mercy.

"I'd say I was lucky in the past," Phil said. "And I'd say my luck ran out today, sir."

"Pity," Fury replied. "We could use some of your past luck right now."

And with that, Phil followed Fury's gaze with his own eyes to their capturers.

"I guess we could, sir," Phil gave in with a sigh.

Regretfully, luck was a fickle companion, and even Phil's longing look towards the hidden door just ten feet behind them couldn't change the fact that luck wasn't favoring them today.

"Hope you enjoy your trip to hell," the leader of the enemy said to them in that particular moment. He raised his hand and Phil could hear the guns being loaded.

"Ready!"

But when the leader opened his mouth to shout "fire!", a single shot could be heard in the hall.

The leaders eyes widened and he looked down to his chest where a red flower was blooming.

Phil's eyes zoom in to a wide eyed face, nearly hidden in the shadows just a feet or two away from its peers. And when the leader was falling, the other men turned towards the awful shooter.

Said man let go of his weapon as if he had burned himself on it. The weapon hit the floor and a second shot could be heard when it automatically fired. Another of their enemies went down to his knees and Phil – trained to think in even the worse case scenarios – used the confusion to hiss a low "retreat!" towards his fellow agents. Fury and the others reacted instantly and they ran away before the confusion was fully lifted of the enemy – reaching the hidden door just in time.

The first bullets were flying their way, but the door was bullet-proved and Phil and Fury were fast enough to close it behind their men, so that the bullets hit metal instead of flesh.

In the inside, there was chaos.

"Traitor!" Phil heard some of them hissing and bullets flew another way than theirs. Phil guessed that they were aiming at the horrible marksman who shot their leader.

"Traitor!"

And just before the doors closed shut and shut out all sound from the inside, Phil believed to see an arrow flying through the air, imbedding itself into a wall. The sonic blast following it its wake is thankfully shut out by the doors or Phil and the others would have been deaf at least.

When they watched the scene inside later on, on surveillance camera, nobody could tell where the arrow had been coming from.

The destruction in its wake instead was definitely real.

From the opposition, nobody had survived.

A little bit further away from them, another body could be found – killed by a bullet wound.

Phil guessed it was the marksman, and he wasn't the only one who did.

Nick Fury kicked the body lightly.

"What a horrible marksman," he commented.

And Phil wondered about the arrow and the bad luck of their enemies and marksmen missing their marks went targeting him. But he said nothing of it. There had been just one comment he _did_ make:

"What a horrible marksman, indeed, sir."

But still, he wondered. It was the fourth incident. Two might have been coincidence, but three were a pattern – and four…

Still, what a horrible marksman.

sSsSsSsSs

V.

To Phil's concern, people started to expect that his luck with snipers continued – and how often he tried to explain to them that snipers normally didn't miss and that something odd had to be happening around him that they did, no one wanted to even listen… not even Fury.

"But, sir!"

"No, Coulson! You are the right one for the job," Nick Fury said. "Don't worry, it shouldn't be too hard. Just get in, take the data and leave."

"I'm a handler, sir, not an agent!" Phil protested anyway.

"And yet you have the highest rate of success in this kind of missions," Fury answered unconcerned. "Truly, don't worry, Coulson. It's an easy mission."

To Phil's regret, Fury had been wrong.

And so it happened, that about three months after the last incident, Phil Coulson was running for his life, praying that his luck with bullets held because the men behind him were definitely set on shooting him.

It didn't.

And yet, it did as well.

He was grazed by a bullet, but the moment he had exiled the building and taken up speed, to get some distance between him and the people following, his luck changed in his favour again.

He could hear his pursuers stop behind him.

Then he heard a voice calling out: "Ready – fire!"

And Phil wanted to close his eyes in desperation. He didn't need to be told that if they had managed to graze him in the maze of corridors and obstacles inside, they would have no problem to shoot him out here.

That was the moment something flew down in front of him, making him stumble and fall. Another thing – not a bullet, that Phil could tell even in the darkness of the night – flew just above his head.

The bullets fired from behind him, missed him thanks to his fall, and the thing that missed him thanks to his fall from the front, sailed further until it hit one of the gas-tanks of the building.

The following explosion was enough for Phil to get away.

Just before he entered one of the jeeps that would get him back to base, he thought that he saw a figure, crouching in a tree, just barely seen because of the fire from the explosion. The figure was looking in his direction, a bow in its hands.

Then Phil shook his head and when he looked at the spot again, it was empty. Maybe he started to hallucinate. The constant babble about him having a guardian angel might have started to take over his sanity.

Still, that was the first time that Phil started to think that the incidents over the past year might be connected.

"I think, someone is out to get me, sir," he reported that night. "That's the fifth incident. There's no way that this is coincidence anymore."

Fury just raised an eyebrow at that.

"Are you telling me that you think you are stalked by such a horrible marksman that he missed you five times already?" he asked incredulously.

And Phil buried his head in his hands.

Fury was right, it was absurd.

Still…

"There can't be that many horrible marksmen in the world, sir!"

And Fury snorted.

"Maybe you truly have a guardian angel – ever thought about that, Coulson?"

And Phil just sighed and shook his head. There was no way any marksman would miss him five times in a row.

What a horrible marksman would that have to be...

sSsSsSsSs

+One

"I'm starting to think you make it deliberately challenging for me," a voice commented. Phil started and turned around, still sitting on his butt where he had landed in his last fight, shy of seven months after the previous incident. Phil's right hand was curled around a gun, the finger on the trigger and the gun pointing at the stranger.

Said man rolled his eyes.

"Easy there," he said and then plucked an arrow out of a dead body next to Phil. It wasn't the only arrow that had felled a man. All around Phil were dead bodies, and at least half of them were struck down by an arrow.

"Who are you?" Phil asked, his eyes narrowed, his hand tightening around his gun. The man turned around at that.

"Come again?" he asked, looking at Phil intensely.

"I asked: Who are you?"

"Nobody of interest," the man this time answered shrugging and continued to pluck the arrows from the bodies, inspecting them before putting them back into his quiver.

Phil snorted at that.

"Sure, and you think I believe that!" he said sarcastically. Again, the man turned back to him.

"If you want to speak with me, either speak up or speak to my other side. I lost my hearing aid in the right ear," the man said and then turned back to his task.

Phil just stared at the man for a moment, then he stood up and neared the man from the other side.

"Hearing aid?" he asked and the man shrugged.

"I deafened myself when I pulled you and your people out of your safe-house ten months ago," the man answered, but his posture was ridged and Phil wondered why the man even told him his weakness.

Then the words caught up to Phil – and suddenly he understood the five odd occurrences in the past. He hadn't been _shot at_. He had been _saved._ And Phil wondered how he could have missed that difference…

Then he remembered how.

"You're not part of SHIELD," he said and the marksman shrugged.

"So?"

"Why are you helping me when you aren't part of SHIELD?"

This time the marksman looked up at him oddly.

"I had a debt to repay," he finally said. "Six times your life for the six times you rescued mine."

Phil blinked at that.

"I can't remember ever saving you," he finally said, and the marksman shrugged.

"Doesn't matter. I was just a circus-kid in a critical condition back then. For you, it might have been nothing, but for me – it was everything."

And suddenly Phil remembered.

The boy had been barely sixteen, and he had been knifed down by his own brother. It had been Phil who found him by chance and it had been Phil who stayed with him and reanimated him when his heart stopped until help arrived.

Phil had always thought that the kid hadn't survived. The injuries had been too great and Phil had only continued to try because the kid's stormy eyes had begged him to not give up on him.

"I'm surprised you counted how often I reanimated you," Phil finally said. The other man snorted at that.

"I didn't," he said. "But you did. Since you insisted on counting aloud, I remembered later on. I'm not someone to not repay my debt – so here I am."

"And I guess I should be really thankful for that," Phil said while looking around. Twenty-three dead bodies – fifteen at least downed by the man right next to him. Phil wouldn't have survived without the man's help.

"Whatever," the man replied shrugging and pulled the last of his arrows.

But Phil wasn't able to let it stand like that, so he stuck out his hand at the man.

"Phil Coulson," he said, and the man looked at Phil's hand as if it was poisonous.

Then the man sighed.

"Hawkeye," he answered, grinning and taking Phil's hand just for a second. "Now, have fun watching your own back again, Phil Coulson."

And with that he is of – fast enough that Phil has trouble following the retreating figure.

"I guess, I have to talk to Fury," Phil whispered sighing.

It would take him another two years to find the Hawkeye again and get him to join SHIELD. Just a year and a half later he would nearly regret it, when the Hawkeye returns with the Black Widow in tow.

What a horrible marksman, indeed.

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 _Well, just something that I couldn't get rid of._

 _I hope you liked it._

 _Ebenbild_


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